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A young French refugee boarding the S.S. Mouzinho that sails from Lisbon to New York on June 10, 1941. Albert Nussbaum, director of Transmigration for American Jewish Distribution Committee, stands next to a young boy with American and Portuguese flags.

Reference Code

NY_03560

Description

Jewish refugees board the S.S. Mouzinho in the port of Lisbon. In September 1940, HICEM (the Jewish Overseas Emigration Association) began making plans to facilitate the immigration of Jewish children to the United States on special State Department visas. Though the program was designed to help children below the age of thirteen, children as old as sixteen were admitted if they were accompanying younger siblings. Relatives in the United States obtained American visas and subsidized the cost of the trip. The JDC facilitated and financed the emigration of children without American relatives. HICEM made arrangements for French exit visas, Spanish and Portuguese transit visas, and reservations on ships out of Lisbon... The children were released from French internment camps, such as Gurs and Rivesaltes, and taken to OSE children's homes while awaiting emigration. However, both the French and American governments were slow in processing the visas and some children had to wait a full year before they received the necessary papers. The first convoy of 111 children left the Marseilles train station at the end of May 1941. They were accompanied by OSE workers Isaac and Masha Chomski, who coordinated the transport with the assistance of Morris Troper of the JDC as well as the American Friends Service Committee. The train stopped briefly at the Oloron train station, located outside the Gurs concentration camp, so that the children could say a final goodbye to their parents. The children had saved their morning food rations and presented it to their parents as a gift to the amazement of all the adults present. The brief reunion was traumatic for both the children and the parents, and the OSE decided to discontinue the practice on future convoys. From France, the children traveled to Portugal by way of Spain. In Lisbon they boarded the S.S. Mouzinho which sailed on June 10, 1941. Two additional groups of children reached Lisbon in the late summer of 1941 and sailed aboard ships